her, hindquarters tensing down for the leap that would bring all two hundred pounds of him right into her lap.
She yanked the Pinto’s door shut with both hands, reaching over the steering wheel with her right arm, honking the horn with her shoulder. She was just in time. A split second after the door slammed closed there was a heavy, solid thud, as if someone had swung a chunk of stovewood against the side of the car. The dog’s barking roars of rage were cut off cleanly, and there was silence.
Knocked himself out, she thought hysterically. Thank God, thank God for that—
And a moment later Cujo’s foam-covered, twisted face popped up outside her window, only inches away, like a horror-movie monster that has decided to give the audience the ultimate thrill by coming right out of the screen. She could see his huge, heavy teeth. And again there was that swooning, terrible feeling that the dog was looking at her, not at a woman who just happened to be trapped in her car with her little boy, but at Donna Trenton, as if he had just been hanging around, waiting for her to show up.
Cujo began to bark again, the sound incredibly loud even through the Saf-T-Glas. And suddenly it occurred to her that if she had not automatically rolled her window up as she brought the Pinto to a stop (something her father had insisted on: stop the car, roll up the windows, set the brake, take the keys, lock the car), she would now be minus her throat. Her blood would be on the wheel, the dash, the windshield. That one action, so automatic she could not even really remember performing it.
She screamed.
The dog’s terrible face dropped from view.
She remembered Tad and looked around. When she saw him, a new fear invaded her, drilling like a hot needle. He had not fainted, but he was not really conscious, either. He had fallen back against the seat, his eyes dazed and blank. His face was white. His lips had gone bluish at the corners.
“Tad!” She snapped her fingers under his nose, and he blinked sluggishly at the dry sound. “Tad!”
“Mommy,” he said thickly. “How did the monster in my closet get out? Is it a dream? Is it my nap?”
“It’s going to be all right,” she said, chilled by what he had said about his closet nonetheless. “It’s—”
She saw the dog’s tail and the top of its broad back over the hood of the Pinto. It was going around to Tad’s side of the car—
And Tad’s window wasn’t shut.
She jackknifed across Tad’s lap, moving with such a hard muscular spasm that she cracked her fingers on the window crank. She turned it as fast as she could, panting, feeling Tad squirming beneath her.
It was three quarters of the way up when Cujo leaped at the window. His muzzle shot through the closing gap and was forced upward toward the ceiling by the closing window. The sound of his snarling barks filled the small car. Tad shrieked again and wrapped his arms around his head, his forearms crossed over his eyes. He tried to dig his face into Donna’s belly, reducing her leverage on the window crank in his blind efforts to get away.
“Momma! Momma! Momma! Make it stop! Make it go away!”
Something warm was running across the backs of her hands. She saw with mounting horror that it was mixed slime and blood running from the dog’s mouth. Using everything that she had, she managed to force the window crank through another quarter turn . . . and then Cujo pulled back. She caught just a glimpse of the Saint Bernard’s features, twisted and crazy, a mad caricature of a friendly Saint Bernard’s face. Then it dropped back to all fours and she could only see its back.
Now the crank turned easily. She shut the window, then wiped the backs of her hands on her jeans, uttering small cries of revulsion.
(oh Christ oh Mary Mother of God)
Tad had gone back to that dazed state of semiconsciousness again. This time when she snapped her fingers in front of his face there was no reaction.
He’s going to have some complexes out of this, Oh God yes. Oh sweet Tad, if only I’d left you with Debbie.
She took him by the shoulders and began to shake him gently back and forth.
“Is it my nap?” he asked again.
“No,” she said. He moaned—a low, painful sound that tore at her heart. “No, but it’s